What We Learned - Preseason Game 2

by ChiefDJ on Aug 16, 2008 9:58 PM CDT

Despite the final score, there were a lot of good things to take from this game. Overall the starters on both side of the ball played very well. It was not until the 2nd and 3rd stringers came into the game that things got out of hand. But it was a preseason game and the coaches were calling plays to work on certain things they needed to see from players rather than necessarily calling plays that would win the game, which they should have done.

In no particular order, here are some things I noticed:

1) Starting Offensive Line Is Improving
I thought all of the starters on the O-line had a very good game. They kept pressure off Croyle and after a slow start initially, began making holes wide enough for Jason Whitlock to run through. I don't recall any holding or false start penalties either.

2) Brandon Flowers will not be intimidated
Going up against Larry Fitzgerald, one of the top receivers in the NFL, could be daunting for a rookie CB. Flowers held his own and covered well.

3) Turk McBride will be a good fit at RDE
Turk had a great game against the Cardinals and his improvment over last year is very noticeable. He contained the bootleg, got pass pressure, sacked the QB and stripped the ball. If he can keep that up and continue to improve we will be in good shape at that position.

4) BJ Sams chance is over
At least he fielded a couple punts tonight, but essentially did nothing to try to make anything out of them. With the other options we have at returner, I think Sams is on the chopping block.

5) Dantrell Savage needs to make the team
This guy plays with a ton of heart and is hungry. He has the ability to make something out of nothing and plays like he's 7 ft tall instead of 5'9".

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Richardson

Barry Richardson was getting eaten alive at Right Tackle. He has a lot of work to do before he’s ready to take over.

by ChiefDJ on Aug 16, 2008 10:21 PM CDT 0 recs

Yep, his first play was terrible

by sunny D on Aug 16, 2008 10:22 PM CDT up 0 recs

RBs

LJ – 14 att – 61 yds
Kolby-wan – 4 att – 37 yds
Savage – 3 att – 12 yds
Battle – 3 att – 8 yds

Rbs average 4.91 yds per carry

I’ll take that any day!

by ChiefDJ on Aug 16, 2008 10:30 PM CDT 0 recs

Much better

I was scared after LJ’s 11 for 19 performance (11 for 18 maybe?) in preseason week one.

by stlfan on Aug 17, 2008 10:14 AM CDT up 0 recs

Good points, DJ

Price showed up and did very well
Cox won a job tonight, imo
Agree with you on Flowers, McBride and Savage
Niswanger is going to snap the ball if the other team jumps the snap. QB be ready.
LJ got the direct snap and the play worked. Go Chan! I’m sure that’s not the end of his creativity.

On the down side

Tre Stallings did jump once, and he was promptrly removed from the game
Sippio dropped two passes. Announcers thought the one by the goal line was on the QB, but it looked catchable to me.
Richardson did look bad on occassion, but I assume he still makes the team easily
Darling did nothing to help himself tonight.
Let’s hope we don’t have to use Thigpen very soon. He’s got moments, though.

by sunny D on Aug 16, 2008 10:30 PM CDT 0 recs

Agreed

Cox definately knows his job. Not only does he slam into guys in the hole, he moves them OUT of the hole to clear a lane for the RB. Thats something we havent had since T-Rich.

I have no doubt Richardson will make the team, I just think he’s nowhere near ready to be a starter. He needs some work.

Darling, I agree. He didn’t have many opportunities, but the big one on the deep pass to Croyle, maybe it was overthrown a little, but Darling didnt appear to be running very hard to get it either.

They need to put Thigpen at RB immediately. He will probably get knocked out the first time he goes up against another NFL teams starters, but we should get good yardage on the play it happens.

by ChiefDJ on Aug 16, 2008 10:38 PM CDT up 0 recs

So you're saying

We need to save Thigpen for one, critical play, eh? …grin…

by sunny D on Aug 16, 2008 10:40 PM CDT up 0 recs

Thigpen

Think of him as an atomic bomb. Once you use it its gone, so make it count.

by ChiefDJ on Aug 16, 2008 10:41 PM CDT up 0 recs

Cox ran and caught well, too

Cox caught his passes and made some yards. Manderino also caught his pass, but looked awkward running it. Manderino was in on a punt coverage play, however. I think that’s his edge in the fullback race. Cox looks like he’d really help our running game as a blocker, though.

by sunny D on Aug 16, 2008 10:46 PM CDT up 0 recs

It will be Cox

he has done everything asked of a fullback and his receiving ability is a great weapon in the type of offense it looks like we’re going to run…I swear that bootleg or naked with the FB in the flat has been open every single time we’ve run it so far

by PVChiefsfan on Aug 17, 2008 10:40 AM CDT up 0 recs

Sippio

I really wanted #6 thing we learned tonight to be “Bobby Sippio is Mortal”, but I thought it would stir up controversy. :D

by ChiefDJ on Aug 16, 2008 10:33 PM CDT 0 recs

LOL

That’s a good take on it. The things he’s known for failed him tonight. On the bright side, he was getting open. That’s been the knock to this point.

by sunny D on Aug 16, 2008 10:35 PM CDT up 0 recs

Sippio

I have nothing against Sippio and he does have extremely good hands. I just like to dig at his more enthusastic supporters.

by ChiefDJ on Aug 16, 2008 10:39 PM CDT up 0 recs

I'm a Sippio supporter

In part because it appeared he wasn’t getting chances once we got into the season last year. I think that’s where some of the rooting comes from. So tonight was a major disappointment. Price, on the other hand, went to go get the ball and made the most of his chances. On my fanpost for the 53 man roster, I switched those two, with Price in and Sippio out. I also penciled in Savage as the return guy.

by sunny D on Aug 16, 2008 10:44 PM CDT up 0 recs

And who says controversy is a bad thing on a discussion blog? :)

There’s a difference between disrespect and unique, strong, opposing viewpoints.

by sunny D on Aug 16, 2008 10:38 PM CDT up 0 recs

So many things wrong with this sentence

NFL.com Game Center:

Chiefs QBs: Battling for Kansas City’s starting spot, quarterbacks Brodie Cryole and Yancy Thigpen had mixed performances.

by ChiefDJ on Aug 16, 2008 10:46 PM CDT 0 recs

Good grief... The quarterback controversy

Is between Croyle and Larry Johnson. When interviewed during the game, Larry Johnson was asked if the direct snap he took would create a QB controversy in KC. Larry agreed that it’s game on between himself and Brodie, especially when the team is in the red zone. Larry was pretty funny — and quietly confident.

by sunny D on Aug 16, 2008 10:50 PM CDT up 0 recs

Good to see LJ enjoying himself again

I remember how frustrated he was last year with the poor play calling. Glad to see him having fun again.

by ChiefDJ on Aug 16, 2008 11:03 PM CDT up 0 recs

Good to see everyone back on the LJ bandwagon again...

As for Flowers, he made a few plays, but he was also lit up on one drive. Now, I understand that Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin are two of the NFL’s best, but need I remind you that Randy Moss is that much better? We are really only looking for improvement, and Brandon did have a few nice plays (beautiful coverage on Boldin on the deep pass), but I think that it is quite a stretch of the imagination to say that he played well. On the Cardinals first TD drive, Flowers was beat like a drum and was the biggest gear in the Cardinal war machine. As mentioned before, he was covering a top 5 reciever, but I don’t think that it justifies saying that he played well. Hopefully, he continues to improve before the beginning of the season because I think that when he finaly does mature, he could end up being a premier corner in this defense.

by Ben S on Aug 16, 2008 11:51 PM CDT 0 recs

Chiefs Cards Game

Had to work last night Just got off and looked at the stats. How did we lose this game?

by dklogue1 on Aug 17, 2008 7:31 AM CDT 0 recs

How we lost the game

Essentially we lost it when the 2nd and 3rd string guys came in. The starters played all but the last drive of the 1st half and left the game tied at 6-6.

In the second half with the backups and Tyler Thigpen playing the entire 2nd half, the Cardinals jumped ahead 20-9. Connor Barth missed a 46 yd FG which, had he made it, would have put the Chiefs down by only one score. But he didn’t so its 20-9.

They stopped the Cards, got the ball back and with 1:14 on the clock, Thigpen throws an interception that was returned 84 yards for a touchdown. Chiefs now down 27-9.

Then with :15 left on the clock, Thigpen throws a TD pass and convert the 2 point try making the final score 27-20.

So the game wsa really much closer than the final score made it sound. Had Barth made the Field Goal, the Chiefs would have only been one score down and they were driving the ball well the next time they got it.

But its the preseason so they weren’t just doing everything possible to win but were still evaluating. With 4 minutes left, they were giving Savage the ball to run several times to see what he could do rather than throwing it down the field to move as fast as possible as you would do in a real game.

by ChiefDJ on Aug 17, 2008 8:19 AM CDT up 0 recs

Game

Thanks for the info. Cant wait to see the game wednesday on NFL.

by dklogue1 on Aug 17, 2008 8:30 AM CDT 0 recs

Barry Richardson got embarrassed his first play

Dantrel Savage should make this team, I think Battle may be the odd man out, Kolby was a beast! Maurice Price in my opinion should be higher on the depth chart than DVD. Will Franklin should be the number two receiver, with Price number three. It was kind of scary, some shades of r2p2 appeared. Waters had a very unclassy moment when they interviewed him, they wished him good luck this season with the young guys, and he says thanks I am going to need it. LJ still gets a case of happy feet sometimes, just run.

by Eric Allen on Aug 17, 2008 8:53 AM CDT 0 recs

Ooh,ooh

And I saw LJ block! (holy crap the sky is falling!) He did good!

by Eric Allen on Aug 17, 2008 9:01 AM CDT up 0 recs

Yeah

I saw that one too, he smothered the blitzing LB on that play

by PVChiefsfan on Aug 17, 2008 10:43 AM CDT up 0 recs

Thought that was a defensive end?

by Eric Allen on Aug 17, 2008 12:12 PM CDT up 0 recs

Actually

you’re right – even more impressive

by PVChiefsfan on Aug 17, 2008 4:32 PM CDT up 0 recs

That was an impressive block

The one I remember had him to the side, somewhat in the open field and LJ had to hustle to meet him. And the block was solid.

by sunny D on Aug 17, 2008 5:19 PM CDT up 0 recs

What I Learned From The Game

Everyone seems to be ignoring it, but Brodie Croyle looked absolutely terrible last night. He couldn’t move the offense, everything he threw deep was off-target and one more pass attempt and he was at 50% completion (which is horrible when you consider how short he was throwing the ball). Thigpen was extremely inconsistent in his performance, but he looked a lot better than Croyle…at least he could complete long passes (albeit not on a regular basis). If Croyle doesn’t perform a lot better than this, he’ll lose the starting job before the trading deadline.

On the plus side, the running game looked very good and Dantrell Savage did nothing but impress. That kid’s making the roster.

Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.

by UCrawford on Aug 17, 2008 10:49 AM CDT 0 recs

And Cox Looked Great Too

Those pass plays we ran to him were the same as what Kris Wilson was getting, and yet Cox was actually able to do something with them. Very solid looking player at fullback, I think he’ll be around for awhile.

Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.

by UCrawford on Aug 17, 2008 10:51 AM CDT up 0 recs

I'm waiting for an announcer to say

“and Mike Cox smashes the defender”

by PVChiefsfan on Aug 17, 2008 11:06 AM CDT up 0 recs

Someone Had A Better One On Bob Gretz's Site

In the article where Gretz is defending Sippio, someone calling themselves “Mike Cox” wrote in and asked why Gretz hadn’t written a piece about our fullback yet (“Don’t you like Cox?”)

Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.

by UCrawford on Aug 17, 2008 11:29 AM CDT up 0 recs

I just don't think you were watching the same game I was

Croyle led KC on two long drives in the first half.

1st drive: 7:12 12 plays Field Goal
4th drive: 6:01 12 plays Field Goal (drive killed by offensive pass interference penalty)

Yes Croyle was 7/13 but at least 3 of those incompletions were purposely thrown away balls because no one was open. He should be praised for throwing them away rather than criticized for not throwing an interception.

by ChiefDJ on Aug 17, 2008 12:13 PM CDT up 0 recs

+1

Not to mention the couple he threw at Darling, to no avail. Franklin or Price deserves to start over him. It’s good to have the talent we have at WR though, even Web flashed a little in the game =)

I’ve been a Battle fan since last year, and he did some good things in the game, but Savage was awesome and may have just beat out Battle in the RB battle lol….

by KCFanatic on Aug 17, 2008 6:09 PM CDT up 0 recs

Phoenix

I’ll say one thing about Phoenix. It’s hot here oh and their coverage was pretty much blanket Cards stuff on TV. Ok that’s two things, but it was fun being in Phoenix for the chiefs game.

Thigpen looked mighty mobile, just needs to be told to throw the ball rather try to run the first downs.

Blame my wife!

by sir eccles on Aug 17, 2008 11:34 AM CDT 0 recs

Thigpens Pick

that was thrown to Sippio was tipped at the line before it got to him. By the time the ball made it to his hands, it was already fluttering. Now, I am not a Sippio supporter, but to say that the pick was his fault isn’t true. Catching a ball that has just been tipped is extremely hard, and there is a reason you never see it in the NFL. After the ball was tipped, Sippio had about .25 seconds to recognize and react.

I am not saying that Sippio should make the team, and considering I haven’t even seen a training camp practice, I don’t think I can make an educated guess as to whether or not he should. However, lets not hate him just because we hyped him up last season.

by Ben S on Aug 17, 2008 12:38 PM CDT 0 recs